<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">State of the Nation&rsquo;s Well-Being, </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Annual Report 2018 </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">(This report is available in Thai, Melayu, Hmong, </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Sgaw, Pwo, and Pa&#39;o Karen, Lao, Khmer, Burmese, Chinese and English)</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">&nbsp;</span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Everyone now claims they saw the global economic crisis coming (the earliest claim known to Harrison George dates from 1854).<span>&nbsp; </span>But few are predicting future scenarios.<span>&nbsp; </span>This week&rsquo;s column foresees a dystopia 20 years from now.<span>&nbsp; </span>Next week&rsquo;s column will offer an opposing vision called Future Good.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Thai newspapers seemed to be caught up in the on-going political conflict and the trust that readers and the public have in them may have been jeopardised&nbsp;after months,&nbsp;if not years,&nbsp;of deeply partisan and bias reporting. No incident could better illustrate the failure of most of Thai newspapers to act as a conduit for free flow of news and information than that of their failure to report a news article by the Associated Press (October 9, 2008) quoting Princess Sirindhorn&#39;s view about the anti-government People&#39;s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) protest. <span style="color: gray">(<a href="http://www.courant.com/news/local/statewire/hc-09192950.apds.m0355.bc-ct--thaioct09,0,6157926.story"><span style="color: gray">Thailand princess speaks at Connecticut school</span></a>, AP)</span></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">This is where I lose some friends. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">When foreigners observe the apparent impunity with which the so-called People&rsquo;s so-called Alliance for so-called Democracy can defy the police, the courts, and anything approaching a sense of reality, the typical reaction is gob-smacked, flabbergasted, dumbfounded amazement.</span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Acharn Thitinan Pongsudhirak&rsquo;s &lsquo;Thailand Since the Coup&rsquo; falls somewhere between journalism and history.<span>&nbsp; </span>For those who have been too far away from events to keep track of the twists and turns, and for those who simply couldn&rsquo;t keep up, it provides a useful overview.</span></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">The nation&rsquo;s middle-class has been outraged at the use by police of lethal teargas and government-conspiracy secret explosives, without warning, against non-violent PAD protestors armed with nothing more than sticks, sharpened rods and guns. <span>&nbsp;</span>This blatant attack on that part of society with an exaggerated sense of its own importance and an inadequate sense of reality is leading to further repercussions.</span></font></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">I recently waved off my brother at Suvarnabhumi Airport on his way home to the UK.<span>&nbsp; </span>If this were a sensible world, run by rational people, then that should the last time for a long time.<span>&nbsp; </span></span></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">Oh lordy, lordy.<span>&nbsp; </span>We get rid of one buffoon only to see the resurrection of another. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">So farewell then, Samak Sundaravej, he of the conveniently selective memory about, for example, how many deaths occurred on 6 October, an event he was heavily involved in. </span><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">And welcome back Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, the Henry Kissinger of Thai politics, the eminence grease of the gravelly voice and the Kermit eyes.<span> <br /></span></span></p>

<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 10pt; font-family: Tahoma">I know Thai politics in the foreign media doubles as a comedy act, but when the Guardian announced the result of the last election under the headline &lsquo;TV Chef becomes PM&rsquo;, I thought things had gone too far.</span></p>

<p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 16px; padding: 0px" class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 13px" class="Apple-style-span">The one thing they say about the People&rsquo;s&nbsp;Alliance&nbsp;for Democracy is that their media campaign is brilliant.<span>&nbsp;&nbsp;Oh yeah? For those of you who have neither the time nor stomach to trawl through the websites, I have selflessly and diligently stolen here a selection of comments on the PAD from foreign sources.</span></span></p>

<p><font face="tahoma,arial,helvetica,sans-serif" size="2">Two weeks after the anti-government People&#39;s Alliance for Democracy (PAD) occupied Government House and plunged the Kingdom into political crisis, the views of ordinary people - especially the rural poor - have been conspicuously absent from media reports. They have largely not been heard from in any substantial way. </font></p>

<p><span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Tahoma;">During Sept 1-2, 2008, there were 17 press releases from groups of various kinds of individuals trying to put forth solutions to the current situation.<span>&nbsp; </span>I received two more drafts circulated via email loops, totalling 19.</span></p>